


The Woods

by Dimity Blue (Arnie)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror, Witch Curses, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 05:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12575152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnie/pseuds/Dimity%20Blue
Summary: If you go into the woods today...





	The Woods

I don't know when it started, none of us do. But we all know that we can't leave. If we do we die. We've seen that happen too many times. So we wait. We all avoid the woods now; we have to. Now that we know. But it sometimes seems to me that the trees are closer to the end of my garden now. As though they're impatient, not ready to wait any more.

We didn't know what was happening. We'd always known that the woods were strange and people shouldn't go walking in there alone. People who did, never came out. Search parties would go in, but they'd never find anything...or anyone. They'd sometimes lose people themselves, people who'd left the main group. Jeanie Hargrove was the first one we really knew about. She ran into the woods after a ball, her mother called her back but it was too late. We saw what happened though. One of the trees grabbed her shoulder. She didn't have time to scream. Yes, that's right, one of the trees. Didn't I explain that? I suppose not. Watching the trees you forget how strange it can seem. To someone who doesn't know them, hasn't seen them.

It's the trees you see, they take people. Or rather, they turn people into trees. I know how strange that sounds, but it's true. Why don't I leave? I can't. None of us can. People who leave the village die. No-one who's left here lives for long. It's as thought the trees are part of us. If we leave them, we die anyway. So we don't go in there now, we daren't. But I think the trees are getting hungry.

Jeanie's father was furious when she became a tree. He ran in there with his axe and hit the tree that had grabbed Jeanie. His axe dug into the tree's side and it screamed; his axe was bloody and the tree fell. It became a woman, Mrs. Parsons. She died a few minutes later. I remember Mrs. Parsons - she'd disappeared when I was a child. After that people tried to make the trees change back. One person shot a tree. In a person, it would have been in their leg. The tree bled for a while but it didn't change. In the end we realised that they'd only change back if they were dying. And who wants to murder a wood?

One of those special investigators into the paranormal came. He was sceptical. He said that it was impossible for people to become trees. I would have said that too, we all would. Not now though. He hung around the edge of the wood for weeks, taking readings. Never going in, though. I think he knew there was something strange going on. He also did a lot of background research. He looked through all of the records in the police station and the library to see when this first started. At least we now know why it started, even if we don't quite know how.

It was years ago, over 200 years ago. There was a witch living in a cottage at the edge of the woods. Don't bother looking for it now, it was burnt down after the witch was killed. She'd murdered her baby boy. At least, that was why she was hanged; they'd said she had. She said that he'd been taken ill and was dying, so she'd taken him to the woods and asked the trees to save his life. The trees had turned him into a sapling, so he'd grow tall and strong as a tree and then she could change him back. But no-one believed her. They said she'd murdered him and buried him in the woods. But I think she was telling the truth. Before they hanged her, she cursed the village, cursed us all. We'd never be able to move away from the village, never be able to escape, and anyone who wandered into the woods would be taken by the trees as one of their own.

Well, it's true, isn't it? We can't leave. We have to stay and now that we know, we can warn the children to keep away from the woods. But children never listen; they dare each other to go in and come out alive. But they don't come out. They never come out.

I liked that investigator. He travelled all over the country investigating things, well, that's what investigators do, isn't it? But he didn't really believe. Not really. He decided that he had to get some readings from further inside the woods. I begged him not to, we all did. We tried to tell him. But he didn't listen.

The wind's getting up. I can hear the trees waving their arms and moaning their sad song. They're waiting for us, and soon they won't want to wait any more. The fence at the bottom of my garden is almost falling over now. I told you the trees were getting impatient. The witch's son is getting impatient. Soon they'll be in my garden. Creeping, so slowly, closer and closer to my windows. I sit here and watch them come. I know they're coming. And when they do, I'll take my can of petrol and my matches and I'll dance for them. I'll dance all the way around them and home again. I hope it'll be a dry night.


End file.
